CIA/OPR /IM-303-75
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ClA FEB75
'^p'°™‘''’°15«N»DEMfWt““fWm MEMORANDUM- THE POLITICS OF ^
UNCERTAINTY: SPAIN PREPARES FOR, THE POST-FRANCO ERA -
. ' / ; 01 OF or
Approved For Rel
boniiaential
Intelligence Memorandum
The Politia of Uncertainty:
Spain Prepares for the Post-Franco Era
Confidential
OPR 303
February 1V75
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CONFIDENTIAL
CENTPAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
OFFICE OF POLITICAL RESEARCH
THE POLITICS OF UNCERTAINTY:
SPAIN PREPARES FOR THE POST-FRANCO ERA
25X1 A9A
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CONTENTS
KEY JUDGMENTS
DISCUSSION
I. SPAIN AND THE PORTUGUESE MODEL
II. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CHANGE
HI. SPAIN UNDER FRANCO
IV. THE CONSTITUTION
V. THE POLITICAL ELITE
VI. THE WORKING CLASSES AND COMMUNIST OPPOSITION
VH. THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY
VIH. STRESSES AND STRAINS
IX. THE FUTURE
If Franco lingers on
If the Caudillo dies soon
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KEY JUDGMENTS
FrancisT'o Franco is dying. While doctors within and without
Spain disag. -20 as to just when the Caudillo will pass from the scene,
all agree that his physical decline has begun, and that there is a general
incapacitation ahead. At the moment, political figures of the e.xtreme
right have 1 le greatest influence upon Franco, and continue to frustrate
Prime Minister Arias Navarro’s attempts to add more flexibility to
the political system. The current dominance of this extreme right
dampene d the hopes of moderate politicians and groups who sup-
ported A rias’ proposal to permit independent political associations in
Spain. ^ oderates are now biding their time.
Ur. dee Portugal before the revolution, Spain has a larger number
of leaders and groups with governing experience, and these could
grow into Jedgling political parties. If these groups are allowed to
move out of their present quasi-legal status, they could assume an
active and important role in guiding Spain toward a more pluralistic
form of government. The outcome of the post-Franco succession will
depe id, however, on how long the dictator lives and his current in-
timacy with the extreme right wing — to the almost total exclusion
of moderate politicians — continues:
— Prospects are bleaker if Franco lingers on. The extreme right
is likely to come to monopolize the political process, and prove
to be inflexible in the face of growing unrest and demands for
reform. As public order decays, the military might feel impelled
to take over the reins of government to restore social peace.
With the assumption of civilian roles, the officer corps will
become politicized, and significant numbers of j, nior officers
might turn radical as Spain’s major economic and social prob-
lems remain unsolved.
— Prospects are better if Franco dies soon. It would still be pos-
sible for moderate individuals and groups to rally around Prime
Minister Arias Navarro, and support his mildly reformist pro-
gram. Co-operating informally with the military, an Arias
government might accommodate restrained political de-
mands, make some gestures to appease labor and regional
protests, and attain some political stability through a plural
authoritarianism.
Whatever the eventual outcome, the unmediate future for Spain
will be characterized by unrest and uncertainty, and politicians’ dis-
trust of each other.
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DISCUSSION
I. SPAIN AND THE PORTUGUESE MODEL
Francisco Franco has ruled Spain for nearly forty
years, and the political structure designed to per-
petuate his rule has few real roots in the population.
As Franco's health declines his decisions are re-
flecting a more rigid conserv^atism, and moderate
groups are coming to think the reforms promised
by Premier Arias Navarro are being betrayed. In
the absence of widely based political parties, the
military remains Spain’s single most poweiful or-
ganization. Important groups both in and out of
Spain are beginning to wonder if the recent Portu-
guese revolution has any implications for Spain. Is
the same scenario likely to unfold in Spain as re-
cently occurred in Portugal?
The forty-year old Portuguese dictatorship re-
cently fell quickly, easily and unexpectedly. Politi-
cal institutions disappeared almost overnight. Con-
servative elements associated with the old regime
were unable to regroup and organize. Exhilarated
by a sense of release, the once repressed population
kent escalating its political demands, and laborers
engaged in a scries of wildcat strikes. The only dis-
ciplined political force to emerge was the Com-
munist party, and its leaders were able to influence
a new military govertiment that is slowly drifting
leftward.
But Spain is not Portugal. Portugal is the least
developed country in western Europe: at three
percent its annual rate of growth is the lowest in
Europe; modes of agricultural and industrial pro-
duction are inefficient; and scarce economic and
human resources were used to fight wars in Guinea,
Angola and Mozambique between 1961 and 1974.
The old political elite clung to outmoded policies
and institutions, and was incapable of enacting cv'en
moderate political reforms. On the other hand,
Spanish rates of economic and industrial growth
are high; Spain has not experienced the debilitating
costs and demoralization of a long colonial war-
Spaniards arc more educated than Portuguese, and
Spain has a larger middle class with greater tech-
nological competence. The Spanish political elite
is thinking hard about the shape of the country with-
out Franco, and beginning to prepare for the fu-
ture. The outcome of events after Franco will turn
on the resolution of the following key political
questions:
— how long will Franco live, and his current
identification with the extreme right continue;
— arc Spain’s institutions flc.xiblc and viable
enough to incorporate now political forces
released during a transition period;
In retrospect the reasons for the downfall of the
Gaetano regime seem obvious. Gaetano did not
have the personal authority of Salazar; yet he as-
sumed office in 1968 with promises of limited re-
form and a flexible African policy. Over time these
appeared to be empty gestures as the Prime Min-
ister backed down, and came to rely solely on in-
transigent, right-wing support. Moderates felt that
options in the political arena were denied them.
Finally in 1974, a group of career military officers,
resenting their long assignments in Africa and the
rapid promotion of reservists, politicized their dis-
content and executed a coup detat. Without the
presence of Salazar or a figure of comparable
stature, the political system toppled completely.
— what are the capabilities of Spain’s political
elite;
— how prepared are the working classes and
radical opposition to co-operate with a post-
Franco regime;
— will the military intcrv'cne in politics?
The succession will also be acted out as new
pressures impinge upon the political system. The
economy is c/iflng/ng. From an era of boom, rapid
growth, and improving productivity, the Spanish
economy is facing a period of inflationary strains,
energy shortages and declining trade balances.
Europe is changing. From aii area that appeared to
offer Spain commercial benefits and intcTnational
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respectability, tiie Common Market now projects
an image of political and economic disarray. Portu-
g<d is changing. From a once somnolent and insig-
nificant neighbor, Portugal is transforming itself
into what may be a revolutionary nation on the
Iberian peninsula. These events will influence the
outcome of pohtical alignments and solutions in
post-Franco Spain.
II. ECONOAAIC AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Between 1800 and 1940 Spain experienced 109
governments, twenty-four revolutions and three
civil wars, and Francisco Franco assumed power
in 1939 only after winning the last, devastating con-
flict. To secure his victory Franco established st.ere
repression, eliminated political competition, isolated
the country from the rest of the world, and thus
prevented economic growth for oi er a decade. For
Ae sake of domestic peace the population was will-
ing to submit to the restrictions of authoritarian
rule.
But in the past twenty years Spain has altered,
and memories of civil war horrors have dimmed.
Because of an industrial boom in the sixties and
associated changes in demographic, literacy and
consumption patterns, Spain is now on the way to
becoming a modem nation. Spain today is a young
nation with seventy percent of the population
having at best faint recollections of the 1936-1939
period. Ninety per^'ent of the population is literate,
and higher education is becoming more accessible
to persons of lower middie-class origin. Nor is Spain
an impoverished agricultural nation any longer:
seventy-five percent of the labor force is employed
in manufacturing and service industries while over
500,000 others have left the countryside for work in
Common Market nations. Thanks to an industrial
growth rate of ten percent, second only to Japans,
sixty-five percent of all Spaniards own television
sets, thirty percent own cars, and most consume
on average about forty-five kilograms of meat a
year. Through emigration, the annual inflow of
twenty-eight million tourists and bilateral security
arrangements with NATO members, Spaniards have
also become more aware of Huropc.
III. SPAIN UNDER FRANCO
Only the political system has not kept pace.
Francisco Franco remains the center of the Spanish
political system; he is the head of the armed forces,
Caudillo of the National Movement,* the church
is dependent upon him for funds, and no organiza-
tions that could successfully compete with the
Movement have been permitted to exist. Without
open arenas for exercising political talents and skills,
individuals have tended to use legal institutions
to further their own ambitions. In consequence
v'ery few institutions in Spain are monolithic. Franco
has countenanced the presence of competing fac-
tions within and without government, military, and
National Movement, and used them as the situation
demanded. When for instance Spain’s economic and
foreign policies w-ere autarkic and isolationist in
the early fifties, right-wing elements dominated the
cabinet; in later years modernizing technocrats
presided over the opening up of the economy and
international relations. All groups have always been
dependent upon Franco for political influence.
At the moment leaders of the cxtre.nc right are
dominating policy decisions. They are not a co-
hesive group, but men who have access to Franco
because they fought with the Caudillo in the 1930’s
or were early ideological defenders of the regime.
These older civil war officers and Afovement
founders can turn only to Franco because social
and economic change has bypassed them. They
have few institutional supports; younger officers in
the military seem to favor strict professionalism,
while the Movement is discredited in society, and
its members are regarded as hacks staffing its’ owm
inflated bureaucracy along with those of the in-
effectual labor syndicates. The Movement is having
trouble recruiting new members voluntarily, and
a younger generation of leaders hopes for internal
reforms to enable it to compete with other groups
in post-Franco Spain. Thus as Franco s health fails,
extreme rightists have banded together to dominate
the Caudillo s few lucid moments and have thwarted
moderate political change.
The right appreciated its isolation when Franco
temporarily gave up power in July of 1974, Although
he resumed power in September, the possibilities
*Thc National Movement, Spain’s only legal political
party, was formed by merging the fascist fo/ange with the
Carlist J.O.N.S. in 1937 to provide Franco with a political
arm. All government employees, workers and university
students are required to belong to the Movement or a
Movement-sponsored organization.
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for continued rule by the ailing eighty-t\vo year
old dictator are not good. The leaders of the old
right joined forces with members of the ultra-con-
serv'ative Franco family to undermine Premier Arias
Navarro’s attempt to permit independent political
associations to organize. They succeeded: in Oc-
tober Franco fired Pio Cabinillas, the liberal min-
ister of information and tourism, and twelve other
important officials resigned in protest; in November
Franco listened sympathetically to Jose Antonio
Giron, head of the newly-formed Civil War Vet-
erans’ Association and former Falangist cabinet
minister, w^ho protested any liberalization, how’ever
moderate. Aftervard, in a demonstration of strength,
the Movement rallied some 17,000 children to
pledge support to the continuity of Franco s regime.
Finally on 3 December, Arias announced that
Franco w'ould only approve associations authorized
and controlled by the Movement’s conscrv'ativc
National Council.-
Arias asked the public for patience, implying
that greater changes would come after the Cau-
dillo’s death. But the longer Franco lives, the more
likely ultra-conservative decisions will become in-
stitutionalized, thereby preventing the potentialities
for change afforded by the constitution from being
realized.
IV. THE CONSTITUTION
The Spanish constitution is designed to legitimize
one-man rule. So long as Franco lives, he is chief
of state, head of the armed forces and Movement,
and arbiter of government policy. Although Prince
Juan Carlos de Borbon is the designated monarch,
he is not empowered to exercise any authority until
Franco passes from the scene. The dictator also
retains firm control of the government by presiding
over bi-w'cekly cabinet meetings, and passing on
proposed policies and laws. While the Cortes or
legislature has the legal power to initiate, discuss
and enact legislation, it has to date played only a
pro forma role. Members of the Council of the
Bcalm, w’hich is authorized to settle disputes
between monarch, cabinet and Cortes, have hon-
orary functions.
’Subsidiary requirements, which specify that each as-
sociation have at least 25,000 members distributed over
fifteen provinc'cs, further add to the difficulties of smaller
moderate groups trying to organize.
After Franco dies, power is to be divided among
institutions without any traditions of independent
authority. Prince Juan Carlos will inherit Franco’s
mantle as chief of state, generalissimo of the armed
forces and chief of the National Movement, but
he will not be empow'ered to control the policies
of government or Movement. The latter pow'ers
will be vested solely in the prime minister, w^ho will
also be able to call into question most decisions
taken by the monarch. Nor will the strength of
the Cortes be enhanced in post-Franco Spain; the
legislature will not have the right to over-ride the
chief of state’s veto or name the prime minister;
eighty percent of its members will still be appointed,
and only riventy percent chosen by an electorate
consisting of heads of families, married w'omen and
single persons with incomes.'^ Should a conflict arise
among these three institutions, the now moribund
Council of the Realm is supposed to act as a kind
of court of last resort.
In and of itself the constitution is a neutral docu-
ment. If consensus obtains among Spanish political
groups, the constitution can be made to work, or it
can even be modified to fit future needs and avoid
potential institutional conflicts. The possibilities for
success w'ere revealed during the forty-six day pe-
riod from July to September 1974 when Franco
temporarily renounced power. Prime Ministei Arias
and Prince Juan Carlos demonstrated ti..:t ♦bey
could work together; moderate politicians supported
them; militaiy^ figures did not intcr\'cnc in civilian
politics.
V. THE POLITICAL ELITE
The viability of the constitution over the longer
term, however, will depend upon the commitment
and capacity of Spain’s governing classes. Spain
has a political elite with sufficient experience to
run the countiy^. Some of its members have sers'ed
in the government wdiile others have been permitted
to exist as a kind of quasi-legal opposition. Nor
arc its members associated with older civil war
parties; they are younger and middle-aged men
with bases in the bureaucracy. National Movement,
church, economy and the liberal professions. They
* Once named by the monarch, the prime minister ap-
parently cannot Ik* dismissed during his five year term of
offic'e, unless the monarch obtains the consent of the Council
of the Realm.
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are a relatively small group with extreme conserva-
tive to mildly liberal view-points. For the moment
the moderately conserv ative and liberal members of
the elite nave given their support to Arias and
Juan Carlos in face of the extreme rights influence
on Franco, and hope that the piime minister and
prince will amend the constitution and laws to
permit freer expression and autonomous political
groupings after Franco.
Although a bureaucrat and former head of the
security police, Prime Minister Arias Navarro has
staked his prestige upon political reform. As mayor
of \Iadrid from 1965 to 1973 he gained a personal
reputation of being responsive to popular feeling;
after the downfall of the Caetano regime in Portu-
gal, Arias sensed the possibility of mild unrest
among the political elite, and recognized the need
for aperture, Juan Carlos has his own reasons for
co-operating with the prime minister. Realizing
that monarchy is no longer valued in Spain, and
that he himself is not highly regarded, the prince
since August has made an effort to establish re-
laricnships with poL al figures favoring liberali-
zation.
These figures come from w'ithin the accepted
spectrum of opinion. Because Franco has never
allow^ed any person or group to become prominent
enough to compete for leadership, Arias and the
prince must appeal to a scries of comparatively
unknown individuals of moderate disposition, many
of v/hom compete for support within llic same in-
stitution: each has his own small following or is
trying to create it; none is very ideological; and in
one way or another all are opportunistic— they
wnnt the freedom to form independent political as-
sociations so as to gain a wider audience. In the
absence of an open political a»-cna, a number of
men joined the National Movement in order to
fulfill their own political ambitions rather than
out of conviction. The best known of these is Manuel
Fraga Iribame, who became popular as a progres-
sive minister of information and tourism in the
1960s; now ambassador to London Fraga has the
financial backing of a few wealthy businessmen.
Other influential Movement leaders are Alejandro
Rodrigues de Valcarccl w^ho is also president of
the Cortes, Manuel Cantarcro del Castillo, who at
thirty-seven heads the Falangist youth organization;
and Jose Solis Ruiz, who is both a vice-president
of the Movement and a former official chief of the
syndical organizations. They would use reforms to
revitalize the Movement — as well as their own
positions — and make it a credible political force
in Spanish eyes.
Support for reform also exis^’s among eminent
Catholics. In fact in an overwhelmingly Catholic
country, the church hierarchy, itself, has taken a
leading role in the fight for liberalization. Spurred
on by the papal encyclicals of John XXIII, the pro-
nouncements of the Vatican Council, and an effort
to retain the faithful in a secular environment, all
levels of clergymen have come to favor civil liberties
and rights of free association. At the latest meeting
of the Spanish Episcopal Conference in December,
only six out of eighty-nine attending bishops dis-
sented from a manifesto calling for greater political,
economic and social justice. Some bishops have
gone so far as to support publically parish priests
w^ho provided sanctuary for political protestors.
The president of the Conference, Cardinal Enrique
y Tarancon, has personally called for competing
democratic parties.
The lay aim of the church is divided politically.
The most controversial Catholic organization in
Spain is the semi-secret, elitist Opus Dei. The ma-
jority of its members are philosophically conserv^a-
tive, support economic change, and rarely take po-
litical stands; they have served in the government
when called upon as modernizing technocrats. The
reform of the Spanish economy is associated w'ith
members Laureano Lopez Rodo and Gregorio Lopez
Bravo, administrators who were appointed to the
cabinet in the early sixties. Within Opus Dei, how'-
ever, there is a competing group formed by the
new exiled Rafael Calvo Sorer w'hich advocates
political liberalization, the separation of church
and state, and the institution of free elections.
(Although now out of office, Opus Dei members
are likely to be influential in the future because of
their talent and expertise in business, the professions
and governr.'jent ) To combat the conserv'ative in-
fluence of Opus Dei as a whole, Federico Silva
Munoz resigned from the cabinet in 1970 and
worked with the National Association of Catholic
Propagandists (A.C.N.P.), a coalition of Catholic
activists.
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More conventionally Christian Democratic — and
participating in the A.C.N.P. — is a grouping of
younger men called Tacito, a name derivrf from
the group s column in the newspaper Ya, and led
by the thirty-nine year old financier, Joaquim Gar-
rigues Walker. Garrigues Walker plans to organize
a reformist party ‘'with an emphasis on youth, ac-
ceptance of existing institutional structures, and
a rejection of extremism” He presumably has the
backing of his father-in-law, Jose Maria Areilza,
the Count of Montrico, a long-time critic of the
regime. The Tacito group is displacing the civil
war Social Christian Democratic Party’ still headed
by the aging but respected Jose Maria Gil Robles.
Finally some middle-class professionals banded
together after Arias' 1974 promise of reform to
create a secular democratic party. Although they
call their association the Social- Democratic Union
and find their models in European socialist parties,
the founders' program reflects a moderate welfare-
statist outlook. The membership is youthful, and
Manuel Diez-Alegria, son of the politically mod-
erate former army chief-of-staff, is a party leader.
The Union has a far more significant future than
the exiled Spanish Socialist Workers Party (P.S.O.E)
in Toulouse, France which is poorly organized in-
ternally and now dominated by radical elements.
Professor Enrique Tierno Galvan was expelled
from the P.S.O.E. in 1965, and speaks for a small
group of moderate socialists inside Spain.
All these individuals and groups are eager for
liberalization. They are essentialy middle-class —
though seme have ties to the financial and social
elite — seeking middle-class constituencies. In Spain's
limited political arena none has had the experience
of co-operating in broadly based coalitions, or of
building mass party structures that can bridge
the gap to alienated working classes. Should reform
be enacted, middle-class politicians will find them-
selves competing with a well-organized, clandestine
Communist party for the allegiance of industrial
workers and regional separatists.
VL THE WORKING CLASSES AND
COMMUNIST OPPOSITION
Spanish workers have a long history of radicalism.
To control the proletariat which fought against
Franco’s armies in the civil war, the Caudillo estab-
lished industrial syndicates. Though superv’isory
responsibility is shared between the National Move-
ment and government, the syndical bureaucracy is
manned by conserv’ative Movement hacks. Its de-
partments radiate out from Madrid in a netw’ork
that includes government representatives, manage-
ment and labor, and they are authorized to regulate
the collective bargaining process in every major
factory. More often than not contract settlements
have favored business interests. Feeling that they
were not receiv’ing benefits from Spain's economic
boom, workers — and only by a very generous in-
terpretation of consumption statistics would many
Spanish workers be considered middle-class — began
to turn the local symdical organizations to their
owm advantage in the 1960's.
Comisioncs Obreras, or workers' commissions,
were formed surreptitiously in larger plants, and
labor leaders used syndical electoral mechanisms
to place independent representatives on official
bodies. Within the syndicates these leaders pressed
workers' demands for higher wages, improved con-
ditions and — in Barcelona and Catalonia * — greater
regional autonomy as well. Despite the efforts of
the secret police, commission leadership has man-
aged to perpetuate itself and to use the illegal strike
as an effective bargaining weapon; protests in-
creased in intensity through the decade of the
sixties, and even more are predicted for 1975.
Because the regime is unable to contain labor un-
rest, factor}’ managers have come to prefer dealing
with the commissions, rather than the official syndi-
cates, in contract negotiations. To date the demands
of workers have been largely economic, and the
commissions in individual factories do not appear
to have yet coordinated their activities with one
another on any sustained basis.
But as the Arias government cracks down hard
on strikes, the clandestine Communist party is
making inroads among industrial workers. Indeed,
according to the latest reporting, the Communist
* WTiile the demands and terrorist activities of rcRionat
nationalists, especially in the Basque country, are disruptive,
they do not represent a major political problem; even after
the assassination of Prime Minister Carrero Blanco in De-
cember 1973 by a group of Basque separatists, the regime
reacted with moderation and restraint. A successor regime
to Franco may have to make some concessions toward grant-
ing a measure of regional autonomy, ar:d Arias appear*^
willing to do so.
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Party of Spain (P.C.E.), headed by the exiled
leaders Dolores Ibamiri and Santiago Carrillo,
seems to have a decisive lead in the competition
for \vorkers’ support." Since the civil war, unions
have l^n b^ed, and the exiled socialist and
anarchist muons have negligible organizations
within Spain. In contrast Secretary-General San-
tiago Camllo has maintained a party apparatus
believed to have five thousand members, and be-
cause cell members are willing to face arrest, suffer
harrassment, and generally bear the dangers raised
by rommission work, laborers have given Com-
munists their allegiance, at least temporarily. How-
ever, ^Camllo has not been able to convert the
party's popularity among workers into a national
political strike.
On the whole the P.C.E.’s reputation has been
enhanced by Carrillos firm independence of Mos-
cow since 1968, and the C.P.S.U.’s 1974 capitula-
tion to the Spanish leader in recognizing the ap-
propriateness of his national strategies.® Carrillo is
using the workers’ commissions to broaden the
party s popular base while he attempts to persuade
moderate opposition figures to join a united front
coalition called the Democratic Junta. Despite some
recent overtures to the officer corps, however, he
has yet to make the party respectable in its eyes.
VII. THE ROLE OF THE /MILITARY
The military has had a special role as the guaran-
tor of the Spanish state from the time FranTO was
selected to head the nationalist forces in 1938.
Senior officers have been incorporated in the regime
as cabinet ministers, members of the national
council and appointees to the Cortes. Generals and
admirals of Franco’s generation have always had
a firm commitment to the conservative outlines
of the regime, but the officer corps has changed
beneath them. Since the advent of American aid in
the early fifties, elite social recruitment has declined
in favor of middle- and lower middle-class types
who are dependent upon their careers as sources
of income. The complaints of the majority of these
•Communists apparently have a firm edjre on soc.alist
Catholic and separatist competition for workers’ support.
• For a time Moscow supported the more pliable, break-
away facUon headed by Enrique Lister. Carrillo’s inde-
pendence was made possible by the money he receives from
anti-Franco exiles in Latin America and Europe.
twenty thousand officers have been largely pro-
fessional: they resent slow promotions caused by
a strict seniority system, long assignments in posi-
tions of little responsibUity, poorly equipped troops,
and very low salary scales — ^which compel ap-
proximately fifty percent of Spanish officers to
hold second jobs. As compared to civilian engineers
and administrators the financial rewards of military
professionals have diminished, but the assurances
of guaranteed promotions and fringe benefits still
make the services an attractive career.
Whether there is significant political discontent
among Spanish officers is less clear. The military
has not directly intervened in civilian politics since
the civil war, but little is known about the politi-
cal composition of the officer corps, factional
splits within it, or the ideological preferences of
commanding figures. All generals and admirals
fought in the civil war and the extreme rightists
amoig them retain an undue influence as old allies
o*^ Franco and his family; others seem more mod-
erate, and appear to support orderly civilian change.
Immediately after the assassination of Prime
Minister Carrero .Blanco in December 1973, the
now retired chief-of-staff, Lieutenant-General
-Manuel Diez-Alegria, and his successor. General
Fernandez Vallcspin, formed a crisis management
group to curb the excesses of military rightists.
They wnre aided by a younger generation of officers
who had attended the staff school under Dicz-
Alcgria’s principalship. To the left, a miniscule
group of junior officers was impressed by the
changes wrought by the new military govern-
ment in Portugal immediately after the April coup.
In any event, concern among military- leaders about
officers joining any future political associations has
grown enough for the three service ministers ( army,
navy, and air force) to warn all officers against
personal involvement in politics. Without Franco to
protect the officer corps’ interests, its response
during a period of transition still remains an un-
known quantity’ in Spanish politics.^
VIII. STRESSES AND STRAINS
Franco’s heirs will have to deal with a new set
of pressures upon the political system. Ihc economic
'Arias .sensed this, and his first major defense policy
speech contained a promise to upgrade the navy's equip-
ment.
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boom is apparentiy over. Spain is almost totally de-
pendent upon external energy supplies, and the cost
of importing them has more than tripled to nearly
four billion dollars in 1974. Real GNP growth
has fallen from eight to four percent, and infla-
tion has reached seventeen percent — the worst
since the civil war. Income from tourism and
emigrant remittances is stagnating at four and one-
half billion dollars, and no longer covers the gap
between export earnings and import costs; Spain’s
current account deficit in 1974 was three and one-
half billion dollars. The government is trying to
keep unemployment levels low, but should produc-
tion continue to fall and emigrant laborers be
forced to return from w^estem Europe, unemploy-
ment is likely to climb far above the officially ad-
mitted 1.8 percent. On the bright side, Spain’s
foreign reserve position and credit rating remain
good, and if emigrants do not return in large
numbers, problems will be manageable for the next
two or three years.
But should the economic dow-ntum become
severe, a successor regime will have few*er oppor-
tunities to satisfy diverging interests. The new
middle-class, fearful of losing its recently won
possessions, would become suspicious of any
changes that might seem to reduce its share of the
economic pie. At the same time, the working class
would demand more, and there would be fcw'cr
monetary and job benefits to give them. Industrial
unrest w'ould increase. In such conditions, politi-
cal leaders might have too httlc time in which to
learn the skills of accommodation, compromise and
party-building needed for a stable transition.
Perhaps, too, the externally motivated incentive
to acquire these political skills may be diminishing.
In tlic past, an important factor contributing to
the support for reform among Spanish politicians
w'as the desire to gain respectability for their
nation in western Europe, along wdth admission
into the Common Market and NATO. But the ap-
jxjal of Europe may be foundering; European
economies have been weakened and made vulner-
able by the energy crisis, and constitutional govern-
ments seem less able to contain the threats of mass
strikes, domestic Communism and separatist terror-
ism in Spanish eyes. The post-Franco leadership —
especially a rightist one — might feel less impelled to
redeem Spain's reputation among the trouble-
plagued European democracies.
Most significantly, attitudes tow’ards the funirc
may become less flexible as a result of the Portu-
guese revolution. The extreme right — with large
demonstrations and new organizations — has
ready indicated its unwillingness to accept any
basic political reforms lest a similar revolution
occur in Spain. In contrast, moderate elements
arc insistent that changes be enacted quickly to
prevent such a revolution. Arias w^as in the latter
camp wiien he attempted to add more bite to the
associations law^ after the April coup in Portugal.
The right thw^arted his effort, as wxil as his plans
to alter the electoral and syndical systems.
For as long as rranco lives, uncertainty and
stalemate will prevail. The ailing dictator remains
the arbiter of Spanish politics. Right-wing friends
and family are monopolizing his attention, while
moderates are biding their time and waiting for
the end. Neither group expects to see Franco
again demonstrate his old flexibility of favoring
one faction and then another to create political
balance.
If Franco lingers on . . .
The longer Franco lives — whether he formally
relinquishes power or not — the less easy and
obvious the outcome of the transition is likely to
be. As it continues to influence Franco’s thinking,
the extreme right will grow more confident about
the future. Some of its members arc even now pre-
paring to take advantage of the new' association
law'. Moderates arc divided and w'avering; men
like Fraga Iribarne arc willing to try their hands
at forminr organizations while others are hesitant
and fear that any connection to the National Move-
ment wll hurt their chances of winning support
from the electcjate. The extreme right will gain
an edge in organization-building, and seek to rally
the support of a middle-class afraid of losing its
economic position. 'Through Franco, the right will
continue to bring pressure upon the Arias govern-
ment, and probably will cause the prime minister
to tighten press law's and to halt any significant
syndical and municipal electoral reforms; the
IX. THE FUTURE
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prince has no clout with which to counter such
moves, and his reputation, already shaky, is apt
to dimhiish. Rightist elements are almost certain
to exert even more pressme on the government in
hopes of bringing about Arias' resignation.
If Franco lingers on over the next two or three
years, Spain will become even more polarized: the
political right and petit-bourgeois interests will be
ascendent; moderate politicians will be alienated;
the working classes will be further radicalized, and
the Communists will grow stronger among them.
Under these conditions labor unrest is bound to
escalate, and the right — ^with or without Franco
by then — ^may not be able to control it. Either
called in by the government or on their own in-
itiative, the armed forces would then enter politics
to restore order. With the assumption of civilian
functions, groups of officers resenting the burden
of underwriting an isolated and ineffectual dictator-
ship in western Europe, might feel impelled to re-
form Spain fundamentally. Spain could then expe-
rience the abrupt and cataclysmic turn-about of
1974 Portugal.
If the Caudillo dies soon . . .
But if Franco dies within the next twelve to
eighteen months, the chances for a stable transition
are better. Barring the unlikely event of a last-
gasp right-wing c >up attempt — the military would
probably react vigorously in the face of unconsti-
tutional actions from any quarter — ^Arias and Juan
Carlos will have the opportunity to solidify their
support among moderate and less intransigent polit-
ical groupings. During the lull provided by a period
of national mourning, bargaining and compromises
that would bring prominent figures into government
could be reached. And acting on his earlier policy
statements. Arias* new cabinet could present a
pro gram that in the guise of a modem 'Trancoism”
wc jld permit more electoral and party representa-
t?.;n in the Cortes, some syndical reform and a
dv gree of regional autonomy. No politician or fac-
tio \ is as yet strong enough to replace Arias or
totally thwart such a program; the military will not
be inclined to interfere with civil affairs immediately
so long as public order is preserved, and the Com-
munists will try if they can to dilute workers* de-
mands in order to win political respectability. But
the initial stages of the transition in the year or so
after Franco will be characterized by tension, muted
conflict and wary steps towards a new political
balance.
Even should Franco die scon, difficulties will
emerge: will Spanish politicians be able to restrain
their personal ambition and competitiveness for
the sake of greater national good? Will they be
able to forego grandiloquent gestures and high-
flown rhetoric for the stolid work of daily political
compromise and the nitty-gritty of party-building?
Coming out of the shadow of Franco, die skills of
prominent Spanish politicians are untried. In the
past individual ambition and an instinct for behind-
the-scenes maneuvering sufficed, and at first many
will probably be content with the recognition
brought by cabinet positions. Jjs associations or
parties are formed, open politicking vdll mean
little more than collecting splintered votes from
a conservatb^e middle-class; real competition will
continue to be conducted out of public view among
prominent individuals and factions. But the politi-
cal system will be a more open, fluid form of
authoritarianism than under Franco.
The gap between the regime and the working
classes remains to be bridged, and political leaders
will have to see that it is in their own self-interest
to accommodate labor and linked regional demands.
The more thoughtful among them — ^including Arias
along with Fraga, Garrigues Walker, the younger
Diez-Alegria and a majority of the hierarchy —
have already advocated a kind of trade-unionism
that would allow workers to organize locally and
negotiate contracts at their factories; they are
gambling on proletarian energies becoming ab-
sorbed in legal activities, and so diminishing labor’s
vulnerability to Communist and other radical in-
fluence. It is a risky business, because the workers’
commissions are likely to increase their strikes
during the transition period, and politicians will
have to be persistent in the face of strong opposition
from the right-wing. While the extreme right nc
doubt will try to sway sympathetically inclined
old time officers, the military will hesitate to inter-
vene in civilian politics so ^ong as the government
appears moderate in its views, capable, and main-
tains a firm grip over public protest.
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Even should appropriate labor legislation be
passed, the gap between the establishment and
the workers will still exist. However, labor is not
united enough to bring the nation to a total halt
as in France or Italy and thus raise the specter of
another civil war. And if domestic peace is not
shattered completely, the military would continue
in its role as guarantor of the regime. Both officers
and civih’ans share a commitment to the general
outlines of Francos state. The majority see room
for moderate, legally enacted reforms,® and all are
fLmly anti-Communist — the party will be banned
as it is now. Relations between the military and
government are likely to be closer after Franco;
without the presence of a reassuring, mediating
figure, an informal consulting arrangement can be
expected to grow up, and the prime minister and
prince would take the precaution of approaching
senior officers before making any major, unexpected
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policy moves. Unless unforeseen pohtical and eco-
nomic forces were to appear on the scene, Spain
would manage to achieve a loose, flabby sort of
stability.®
In any event, the leaders of post-Franco Spain
will for some time be pre-occupied with internal
political and economic problems; and while they
would welcome admission into NATO and the EC,
they will be prepared to bargain hard for concrete
security and commercial benefits. They will watch
events in Portugal with concern, continue to cul-
tivate relations with the Communist and Arab
worlds, and — ^perhaps as a symbol of Spanish in-
dependence — give voice to a loud but superficial
mti-Americanism.
